Goshen
The town I live in is a casual midwestern town. There are farms,
livestock, subdivisions, even trailer parks. We have our fair share of
rednecks, mexicans, indians. amazingly enough, we only have around
five black people or so. most of them are adopted. downtown, there are a few stores. it doesn't thrive the way it probably
did back in the 50's or 60's. There's a salvation army, a nice men's
clothing store, a few antique shops, a music store. nothing really
fanciful. the owners complain that the wal-marts and meijers take
away their business. it's a realist's world.we have two radio stations in town, one am and the other fm. there are
no tv stations. the newspaper is a two to three section job called,
rather blandly, The Goshen News. we're the seat of Elkhart County. we've had one murder in the last five years. it was a gruesome throat
slitting done by a guy who escaped minimum security prison. i knew
the girl that was killed.we've had one known case of aids in town. it was a girl that i went to
school with. her name was dawn. if i tried hard enough, i could
remember her last name. i met her when i first moved to Goshen in 1988.
she was in my second grade class. she always tried to kiss the boys.she died when i was in eighth grade.they made a big deal out of her going to school. the school board
didn't want to let her, but her mom fought like a demon. they finally
let her go.she was a nice girl. i didn't go to her funeral.Goshen is a small town. around 25,000 people. there is no last name
that i wouldn't at least recognize. there's no street that i couldn't
find. there's no cemetary that i haven't been to. there's no church
that i haven't passed. it's just that kind of place.our mcdonald's restaurants are staffed with freshman and sophomore
high school students. our friday night date places are the movie
theater or maybe just a pleasant drive around town. the teenagers here are as trendy as one might expect from people who
find out about music from the radio or MTV. i would say around 80% of
the high schoolers smoke pot and around 50% move on to something
harder. i've only ever known one person who did heroin. there was a girl in my freshman english class that was bisexual. when
the word got out, she was persecuted like she was the devil. her family
pulled up stakes and moved to chicago. she was nice, and i'm sorry
that i didn't know her well.we still have some streets made of brick. there are amish people who
drive their horse and buggies through town. they do their shopping at
wal-mart. goshen is so average that it's almost scary. it's my so-called
life-ish. i can imagine that whole show taking place in my town. it's
not so far fetched. i imagine that a lot of people who are born here end up staying here
or coming back here at sometime in their life. my dad did. it's a
peaceful place. people hate having their peace shattered. this whole
town thrives on the law of averages. even the extreme here is in the
average for most places.
